Back in 1987, Francisco Cirillo was a college student struggling to stay focused when he was studying. He started using a kitchen timer that looked like a tomato (pomodoro in Italian) to help and developed the method of using a timer to break larger work blocks into smaller, focused blocks. He’d work/study for 25 minutes
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You’re Supposed To Be Having Fun, Too
I used to do a lot of fun stuff. Then I got married and had kids and almost everything I loved doing came to a screeching halt as I prioritized everyone else and what they wanted to do over just about anything I wanted to do. Twenty years, five kids, and one divorce later, this
What Would Marie Do?
I first met Marie five or six years ago when she took an online course I was teaching to help women establish exercise as a habit. There was a closed Facebook group for the course, and eight weeks later, we were all more friends than participants. I met some of my favorite people through this
A Dining Room Makeover Using Stuff I Already Had
We spend a lot of time in the kitchen and dining room. I spend a lot of time looking into the dining room from the kitchen. When we moved into the house four years ago there was no money for furniture, and with two kids in college and three more to go, that budget remains
Do You Want Company?
Yesterday we went to my parents’ house for the annual Easter egg hunt. Every year my dad hides plastic eggs for the kids out in their back yard — 24 little eggs, and 1 big egg per kid. The little eggs have candy in them, and the big egg has money in it. The eggs
Me Week
This kids are going to see Ingrid tomorrow for spring break and I am kid-free for the next eight days. EIGHT DAYS!!! Pre-divorce I didn’t think I could handle being away from the kids for this long. I was wrong. I can handle it. In fact, I look forward to it. For the next eight